I think we can be competitive on and off the field and create a model where our athletes are scholars and learners, too.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We want to promote the great qualities of athletics - and maintain its integrity - all over the world.
As athletes, our job is to train and compete.
I would say that one of the hardest things for an athlete, and really anybody of any profession, is that we create our identity in what we do.
If we can take young people who excel at the highest levels, put them on the same kind of pedestal as the all-state basketball player and the all-state football player, and begin to get the same kind of recognition, it will have a profound effect, and we are finding that it does.
We want to make sure our athletes have a future once their athletics careers are over.
It's been our goal as a program to always give our players the best opportunity to be successful, whether it's personally, academically, or athletically.
Our society is very, very good at developing certain types of skills and certain types of genius. We are fantastically good at identifying and developing athletic skills - better than we are, really, at almost anything else. We are quite good at developing and rewarding inventiveness.
What is learned on the athletic field is not forgotten, nor are the lessons of character that are forged there ever lost. Consider the contributions in the field of public life, business, law, medicine, and the military of those who actively participated in athletics.
We're focusing on producing top, great athletes for the Olympics.
We train and work so hard in our sport, we would be nothing less than a warrior. Day in, day out, this is our life. It's everything. The Olympic dream.